Gallen no longer flying under the radar

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- The past two springs, right-hander Zac Gallen had a relatively low profile.

Back then, Gallen, now 24, went to big league camp with the Marlins each year just trying to learn and make an impression on the big-league coaching staff, hoping to maybe earn a callup during the regular season.

This year with the D-backs, Gallen is no longer flying under the radar.

Some national pundits see him as being the best starting pitcher the D-backs have in a rotation that also includes Madison Bumgarner and Robbie Ray.

And while the D-backs continue to talk about competition for spots in the rotation, it seems as though it would be a pretty big upset if Gallen has not locked down a spot come the March 26 opener.

For his part, Gallen appears unfazed by it all.

“Your job is always the same,” Gallen said. “I don’t really look at it differently. It is a little bit different feeling, though, because last year I wasn’t really on their radar, but at the same time it’s still about going out there and competing. You still have to make pitches. You still have to get outs. That’s the way I look at it.”

Acquired by the D-backs from the Marlins just prior to last year’s Trade Deadline, Gallen posted a 2.89 ERA over eight starts and at times was dominant -- holding the Phillies to one hit over five innings in his Arizona debut and allowing just one hit to the Padres over seven innings at the beginning of September.

He posted a 2.5 bWAR including his time with the Marlins, which was just narrowly behind the 2.8 bWAR posted by Bumgarner last year.

“He has a number of weapons,” D-backs GM Mike Hazen said of Gallen. “He’s got really good stuff, he’s a really good competitor and a really good strike thrower. Those were the really big things we liked about him.”

Arizona catcher Carson Kelly, who came up in the Cardinals organization with Gallen, said that success only makes Gallen want to do better.

“That’s that drive that he has,” Kelly said. “Catching him in the Minor Leagues he was very poised, and understood what his routine was and how to pitch. So seeing him progress from the levels and now he’s got his routine dialed in, he knows what he wants to do and he’s making little adjustments that are going to help him big time in the long run -- from preparation, to sequencing, to tunneling -- all these little things that not everybody sees, that’s what he’s working on.”

Gallen has embraced the opportunity to learn from the veteran starters like Bumgarner, Ray and Mike Leake this spring.

“Those three guys have been around a while,” Gallen said. “It’s huge. You can bounce things off them. The really good thing about those three guys is they’re all really different personalities. So you can get one thing from Leake, you can get one thing from Bum and one thing from Robbie. I think that’s one of the cooler parts of this whole dynamic.”